the Forty Ninth Story

Before I had my own cross country ski equipment, I would run down to the EMS and rent a set for a day in the winter woods. There was this one time when things just weren't quite right, but I didn't realize till I was out in the woods, and being stubborn, I still went for a full day. I came home a bit sore, but these things generally take some time to sink in. I went to work the next day, and while things hurt a bit, I was pretty much ok all day. I wasn't doing anything real physical- just cutting apart a model car to make a maquete for a piece the guys were doing that would be an exploded view of an Indy 500 car. I left a little early, and sometime about halfway through my ride home my muscles started locking up. By the time I made it home, I was pretty much out. I was so out that I left my bike, freelocked, leaning on the side of the house, and that's pretty damned far gone, for anyone who hasn't seen me with my bike. I went in, and found the muscle relaxers I got when I first started forging. Now, I only ever took half of one of these things, as I'm extremely sensitive to most drugs, but I was already basically gone, and the idea of trying to cut one in half was just too much- so I took a whole one and went to bed. Dustin came home a few hours later, and, seeing my bike beside the house, knew something was up. He came in, and I was in bed. He asked me what had happened that day. In my drugged stupor, I waved my hand in the air and said "The car. It exploded." He asked for clarification and I, rather annoyed that such a clear statement could cause confusion, simply repeated, louder and slower "The car. It exploded". Dustin responded with the only appropriate thought "so, you won't be eating dinner?" and carried my bike in.

the forty eighth story

happens on the same trip as the forty seventh. We were both young, and silly, and one of the things we most loved to do together was to get lost. Inspired by the previous day's events, we decided to go ahead and deliberately do so, together. So we wrote up a plan. We would get on the metro. We would wait till we saw someone in an orange shirt, and take the next possible transfer, and get on whatever train we saw first. We would get off at the fourth stop, and go to the left exit off the train. We would turn left on getting to a road. We would take the third right, and walk past one bakery before turning left. Two blocks and turn right. And we would eat at a restaurant on the third block*. We ended up at a Russian restaurant with only two tables. It had red walls, red curtains, red tablecloths, red napkins, and red shades on the lights. We ourselves were red, with the tinted light coming in from the windows and through the lampshades. There was an open window to the kitchen, through which we were handed (red) menus. The menu was in Russian. There was a (red) wax figure of an accordion player sitting at the next table- except that, as we were trying to figure out how to order, the wax figure leaned over and very kindly asked, in very broken French, if we needed help. We were very happy to have any help, but it turned out we really could not talk with this man- he had so little French, and we had so little French, and there just wasn't much overlap. He kept apologizing, and finally, we told him to just order for us whatever he thought best. We ended up with Boscht, and some sausage dish, and some meatball type thing- a whole lot of food. We took much of it home with us. The next day, for dinner, we opened up our takeout containers, and you can only imagine our childish surprise at realizing that the food itself was all red.

*these are not the actual directions, but a recreation of how they were done. The actual ones were much more convoluted, but you get the idea

the Forty Seventh Story

When I was a junior in High School, my brother did a semester abroad in France. Naturally, I went to visit. He had classes, though, so I was on my own for some hours each day. During one of these periods, I took myself to the Louvre. I was supposed to be meeting my brother after his class, at roughly 4pm, on the other side of town. And I got lost. Truly, awfully, horrendously lost. I could not get out of that museum. There is, I kid you not, a staircase in one of the upper galleries which has, at the top, an exit sign, pointing down, and, at the bottom, an exit sign, pointing up. Picture me, if you care to, at age 16, frantically searching for a way out of the Louvre, getting distracted at every turn by something that simply demanded my attention. Luckily, not too long after the museum closed at 5h30, I was very politely thrown out. By the time I made it to my brother, he was pretty well worried sick.

the Forty Sixth Story

When I was a tiny thing, I was afraid of snakes. My mother was not the type to accept unreasonable fear, so she decided that she was gonna break me of that one by catching one of those pretty little green grass snakes and bringing it in for me to play with. She caught it fine, and brought it in, but when she went to show it to me, it bit her. They don't have teeth, but they do have sharp grinding plates and powerful jaws- she ended up yelling and waving her hands in the air, with this long streamer of bright green snake flying out behind one of them. It was hilarious. Pretty much cured me of my fear of snakes, though I do still have a healthy respect for the big ones.

the forty fifth story

Waiting in line at the taco counter I was conversing with the fellow in front of me. In the conversation it came up that I seldom go there, and was only there this day because I was on my way to pick up my partner. He got his tacos to go, and left. When I went to pay, I was told that he'd already done so. I generally think i have a pretty positive view of the world, but it never would have occurred to me that a fellow would buy my lunch knowing that i'm taken and that he's unlikely to see me again to even get a thank you. Yay world! Yay free tacos!

the Forty Fourth Story

The Mushroom story: (this one's good! it has a punchline! it's worth reading to the end)I lived in one apartment for almost the entire time I was at Massart, but during that time, lots of folks moved in and out. After I'd been there for six months, everyone but me left, and Svea, Tom, and Sonia all moved in. This was ideal. Everyone got along, everyone had similar ideas of personal space, things were great. Svea moved out and Tyrell moved in. Things were still great.  Sonia moved out and Amber moved in. It still worked. Then Amber decided we needed a chore schedule. This pissed off everyone, and everyone, without talking about, decided they were only doing chores as they were assigned, but mostly still only did the chores that they had been doing before the schedule. Previously, Tom pretty much didn't clean, but he regularly made chilli and cheese cakes, and that was a fine balance, as far as I was concerned. I kept the bathroom and counters cleaned. Everybody did their dishes (including Tom). Sonia had done most of the neatening, and I admit, we were collectively falling behind in that department with her gone. One month, on Amber's bathroom cleaning turn, she made everything in there REALLY neat. Cleaned the mirror so it shone. Put the shampoo bottles in order by size. Looked great.
That night, Dustin was over. About three AM he got up to go to the bathroom. He shouted back "Kest, come here! You've got to see this!" There is, I thought, nothing I could need to see in my bathroom at three am. I shouted back a simple "no". He insisted. I put on a bathrobe and went out, bitching in my head. There, though, in the corner of the bathroom, were mushrooms. Sprouting right from the floor. They were aesthetically pleasing, and also absolutely hilarious, particularly after the scene Amber had made about how she was the only one who ever really got anything clean in the house. Dustin and I stood there and laughed for a while, I took a picture, and we went to bed. I left the mushrooms in place, knowing that Tom would enjoy them at least as much as I had.
In the morning, I got up and asked Tom if he'd seen the mushrooms. He hadn't, and I took him in to show him, but they were gone! We were both upset by this tragedy, and asked Amber if she knew anything about it. She was livid, and utterly unamused.

The Forty Third Story

This story is from the first time I went to Thailand.  Across the street from the Grand Palace campus is Wat Pho. This temple is only just bigger than the Buddha it houses. There are two doors, one on each side of the head, such that you walk in, do a "u" around the feet of the Buddha, and walk out just about 20 feet from the entrance. There is no point where you are far enough away to see the whole Buddha- instead, one contemplates details. When we were there the first time, there were scaffolds set up to do some upkeep on the Buddha. We walked in and heard this metallic "tiktiktiktiktiktiktik". I assumed it was tiny hammers, associated with the repairs, but it was quickly evident that no one was working. When we finally made it around to the other side of the Buddha, we discovered the source of the sound. Hundreds of tiny metal bowls were set on stands, and, for luck, many folks were walking down the line, putting 1 baht coins in each of the bowls. Bowls had different tones based on their own make, as well as how much weight was in them. Monks came along and emptied the bowls at regular intervals, updating the sound

A photo of a small section of the Reclining Buddha